BlackBerry unseats iPhone as most popular smartphone in Q1

Aggressive promotions through its US wireless carrier helped push BlackBerry maker Research in Motion ahead Apple and the iPhone to take honors as the most popular smartphone maker during the first quarter of 2009.

During the three-month period ended March, RIM's consumer smartphone market share increased 15 percent to nearly 50 percent of the smartphone market versus the prior quarter, according to market research firm NPD.

The rise was good enough unseat previous top-slot holder Apple, whose iPhone along with handsets manufactured by Palm saw their share of the market each decline by about 10 percent.

NPD attributed the shift largely to an aggressive "buy-one-get-one" promotion by Verizon Wireless that helped RIM's BlackBerry Curve move past the iPhone to become the best-selling consumer smartphone in the U.S. in the first quarter.

"The more familiar, and less expensive, Curve benefited from these giveaways and was able to leapfrog the iPhone, due to its broader availability on the four major U.S. national carriers," said analyst Ross Rubin.

The promotion also contributed to RIM capturing two additional top five positions, namely the the third slot, which went to the BlackBerry Storm, and the fourth, which was made up of all BlackBerry Pearl handsets with the exception of flip models. T-Mobile's G1 handset running Google's open Android software was the fifth most popular smartphone during the quarter.

Overall, smartphones saw their share of the global cell phone market rise 6 percent on a year-over-year basis to 23 percent. Rubin sees this as a sign that, even in the challenging economy, consumers are "migrating toward Web-capable handsets and their supporting data plans to access more information and entertainment on the go."

Apple's fall from top of the smartphone charts wasn't unforeseen. The Cupertino-based company said last month it shipped 3.79 million iPhones during the first calendar quarter of the year. By comparison, RIM sold a record 7.8 million BlackBerries — or more than double the number of iPhones. — between December and the end of February.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Aggressive promotions through its US wireless carrier helped push BlackBerry maker Research in Motion ahead Apple and the iPhone to take honors as the most popular smartphone maker during the first quarter of 2009.

During the three-month period ended March, RIM's consumer smartphone market share increased 15 percent to nearly 50 percent of the smartphone market versus the prior quarter, according to market research firm NPD.

The rise was good enough unseat previous top-slot holder Apple, whose iPhone along with handsets manufactured by Palm saw their share of the market each decline by about 10 percent.

NPD attributed the shift largely to an aggressive "buy-one-get-one" promotion by Verizon Wireless that helped RIM's BlackBerry Curve move past the iPhone to become the best-selling consumer smartphone in the U.S. in the first quarter.

"The more familiar, and less expensive, Curve benefited from these giveaways and was able to leapfrog the iPhone, due to its broader availability on the four major U.S. national carriers," said analyst Ross Rubin.

The promotion also contributed to RIM capturing two additional top five positions, namely the the third slot, which went to the BlackBerry Storm, and the fourth, which was made up of all BlackBerry Pearl handsets with the exception of flip models. T-Mobile's G1 handset running Google's open Android software was the fifth most popular smartphone during the quarter.

Overall, smartphones saw their share of the global cell phone market rise 6 percent on a year-over-year basis to 23 percent. Rubin sees this as a sign that, even in the challenging economy, consumers are "migrating toward Web-capable handsets and their supporting data plans to access more information and entertainment on the go."

Apple's fall from top of the smartphone charts wasn't unforeseen. The Cupertino-based company said last month it shipped 3.79 million iPhones during the first calendar quarter of the year. By comparison, RIM sold a record 7.8 million BlackBerries -- or more than double the number of iPhones. -- between December and the end of February.

It makes no sense from a business standpoint for Apple not to venture out and offer the iphone on other carriers. This data simply drives that fact past common sense into just plain duh.

I think any product has it's ups and downs though. The hype around the iphone is lower now, but will inevitably explode again when the new iphone is unveiled.

Out of curiosity, will the prices on the current iphone model drop when they start selling the new iphone?

I agree on the carriers. Though I have been an AT&T/Cingular/SW Bell Wireless/Ameritech customer for going on 15 years now, I think it would benefit Apple to branch out. I realize they wanted to put their eggs in one basket regarding development of features like visual voicemail, but can it be that hard to create features like that on other networks?

As for the new iPhone, I hope there are some stunning new features and improvements. I have yet to bite on the iPhone yet, but was tempted with the refurbed 16GB for $149. Still, for me that is a boatload of cash for a phone. I have yet to pay more than $29 for a phone. Heck, my Palm Centro was free, and it does a decent job though the keyboard is ridiculously small.

That kind of two-for-one antic will cost RIM dearly in the next quarter.

That said, clearly RIM is the most important competitor in the long run. People who own Blackberries are fiercely loyal. They are just like Apple fans. RIM would have to have not one, but several duds in order to lose them, and that's not likely.

I really doubt that iPhone owners, even those whose contracts will expire, will leave the iPhone along with the money they invested in buying their iPhone apps anytime soon.

I don't know why people think of Jun/July as the magic date where iPhone owners will expire their contracts?!! The 1st generation iPhone was sold for a whole year before it was replaced by the 3G version and the majority of 1st iPhone owners (in the US) upgraded. I am also sure that almost all of those who did not upgrade will go for the new iPhone coming this summer so they can keep using their apps (professional, games, .. etc).